Belgian born Peter Forret, who recently took a trip to Bulgaria, noticed an ad campaign for Mastika, an aphrodisiac used as an ingredient in mixed drinks or in the yogurt drink Ayran. He remarked the standard of advertising in Bulgaria appears to be far different than that of his home country, Belgium.

The print campaign employs visuals of scantily clad women foisting their curvaceous features towards the viewer. A commercial has two guys ogling a girl who passes them by on the beach and casts a shadow on the sand suggesting a figure of, shall we say, larger than normal proportions. Sadly, the commercial employs the tired, much over used male arousal tactic.

December 6, 2007: Hey kids! Guess what? If you study hard and get good grades, guess what you'll get? No, not a college scholarship, sillys. That would be too boring. No, if you get good grades on your report card, you'll get a Happy Meal coupon on the card that you can use to get fat...uh...have a free lunch.

Yea, people, you read that right. In-school advertising's idiocy has spread to report cards. Yes, report cards. For covering the paltry $1,600 printing cost of Seminole County Florida's 2007-2008 report cards, McDonald's was able to place the coupon on the report cards of kids who received all A's and B's. Yes, you also read that right. Only smart kids are allowed to get fat.

This is pretty stupid. No, it's idiotic. OK, not really. Every once in a while , an advertiser sends in a game that, in some way, is supposed to help it sell more shit. So, today, comes the game Wallet World, created by Doner for PNC bank. It's got all the usual goofy visuals and, like many games, always asks for some sort of information before you can play. Wallet World ask you to choose the state in which you live.

Use the clips and audio/video composition tools to create your own trailer. Oliver Stone himself gets to decide which is best.

The problem is, YouTube immediately removes entries upon submission. One entrant says, "all that remains of your genius contest entry is the phrase 'This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Lionsgate'."

Here is the hole where an entry should be. (In the event that Lionsgate is smart enough to fix this, here's a screenshot.)

A complex promotion for a man who, at the very least, was a complex leader. Maybe they're only suppressing entries by users suspected of storing WMDs.

Anyone who thinks the wording of the erroneously sent Carat documents about impending layoffs was, in any way, different from other agencies' documents on the same topic is an idiot. It's always about saving face. It's always about making the agency look good in front of the client. It's all about positioning to protect the business. There isn't an agency out there that hasn't thought of or written the same thing Carat did in those documents.

But here's the thing. The words in any agencies' documents are almost always set aside when two human beings - the one doing the firing an the firee - sit down face to face in the same room to address the dirty reality of layoffs. They are inevitable and there is nothing anyone can do about it.

In yet another "homage" if you will, a brand has "borrowed" the imagery of an artist for commercial gain. In this case, it's 1800 Tequila giving nod to the work of artist Charles Burns. Eric Reynolds has the image here. Once he saw the ad, he contacted Burns who said the ad was a complete surprise to him though, perhaps in a nod to his own work, he added "makes me wanna drink some tequila."

If you're going to have your work "stolen" the least it should do is work in the form for which it's been "stolen" for. According the artist, himself, the work seems to have accomplished that task. Burns' work can be seen here.

UPDATE: Dead As We Know It, creator of the work, defends:

Actually this campaign was created by my agency, Dead As We Know It, using many pieces of art from artists around the world. This was just one of a large number. If you go to www.1800tequila.com you can see all of them. Eventually there will be 1800 pieces. Jorge Alderete, of Mexico City, has a great portfolio encompassing a wide range of work, possibly influenced by Charles Burns as well as all the cartoon and graphic work that Charles Burns was influenced by. By no means did we originally try to get Charles Burns or someone to cop his style. We saw a cool CD cover that Jorge did and acquired another piece in the series. Check him out, http://www.pocko.com/pockopeople/artist/jorge-alderete/

Seems to be a month of people accusing people of thievery, really sad statement on the state of things. And, just as my agency wasn't ripped-off by Amalgamated for the Virtual Drinking Buddy, we did not rip-off Mr. Burns or one ad in this extensive campaign. So, let's shut-up and get back to the noble profession that we are known for.